Its not always about the Destination..

Early morning

When the sun eventually came up I couldn’t tell if I had  slept or not, but the lower bunk had been vacated along the way so I folded mine down and sat by the open window and a cool breeze and watched the countryside roll past. It was flat and completely covered in a patchwork of crops in various states of growth from  just planted to just harvested and of various kinds as well as vegetable patches and watercourses, and rows of trees and little villages. I saw one tractor but everywhere else the ploughing and weeding and harvesting was done with the help of animals and by hand , mostly womens hands as far as I could tell, and there they would sit, on their haunches with a short sickle weeding or cutting down the wheat or soy or whatever it was. I realized this was a way of life that was virtually untouched by modern civilization, and though hard would surely be preferable to life in the city, except for the fact that in the city there was always that faint hope that somehow your luck might change and you could break free. I think its a fundamental of human nature that prefers the uncertainty of a wretched life with hope, to a certain but hard life with none. 

The  Station

And then finally we arrived at Varanasi. The Stations are amazing places, always frantically busy and crowded, as are the trains, but waiting in the station is an experience all of its own, something which only the Disorganized Traveler would ever get much of a chance to experience. But I have sat in and wandered these places for 10 or 12 hours in the last few days, albeit involuntarily. Outside there is always a massively overcrowded  and rowdy taxi and bus area with associated smoky food stalls and other assorted hawkers, and from here touts penetrate all parts looking for custom. You step off the train into a posse of them, all after you, and some are incredibly persistent and right in your face. I try to ignore them at first and move away so I can gather my bearings and try to remember the name of the Hotel or wherever it is I am supposed to be going. The station platform itself will be crowded with people waiting for trains,and stacks of freight weighting to be loaded as well, much of it packaged into cartons  the size of say a washing machine and quite neatly wrapped in white cloth, with felt-tip pen lettering. Many of the people must be planning a very long wait because they spread a ragged sheet out on the concrete just about anywhere and lie down to sleep. 

Sometimes all you see is something like a corpse wrapped in a sheet, sleeping on the grubby concrete, but often it is clearly whole families all lined up asleep late at night, small children and babies included and a wall of baggage.There are free drinking water taps - best left alone by foreigners - and waiting rooms for Ladies and for High Class Gentlemen that have a squat toilet - dont ask- and there are kiosks that sell magazines, books, snacks and what-have you. Outside, between the station and the road at Agra there were scores of people sleeping like this outside, alongside the dust and filth and  spit and animal shit and rubbish and the stink of urine everywhere, probably many were beggars and impoverished little families rather than travelers, all asleep by 10.30 at night but with dogs and cows and touts and taxis milling all round them. Even on the platform itself dont be surprised to see the odd cow wander by, and dogs, and there are always beggars and if you look down at the railway line itself, between the tracks is a massive collection of rubbish and scurrying everywhere hundreds of rats, plump frisky things that barely change  what theyre doing if someone jumps down near them to cross to the other platform. Unbelievable…